Translator Gator

Are the holidays starting to get a little boring? Looking for something to keep you occupied? How about trying out Translator Gator? 😊 It’s a fun and interesting project that (here’s the best part) comes with an incredibly meaningful dimension!

Translator Gator is basically an online game developed by the United Nations Pulse Lab Jakarta (PLJ) to aid in improving disaster response and awareness in the ASEAN region.

Asia Pacific is one of the world’s most disaster-prone regions. Disasters, both natural and man-made, can cause devastating effects. Communication is a key component of disaster management, yet most communications are undertaken from top to bottom, from government to citizens. To improve response and recovery efforts, it is crucial to capture the voices of those who are directly affected by a disaster.

Social media captures a broad range of citizen voices. In order to better understand what is being shared, it is necessary to have a set of keywords, or a taxonomy, to extract information from social media. However, building taxonomies in different languages, including local dialects, jargon and even alphabets, can be labour-intensive and time-consuming.

To address these challenges, PLJ developed a web-based crowdsourcing game for translation, called Translator Gator. In 2016, PLJ successfully piloted Translator Gator in Indonesia to translate development-related keywords from English to six Indonesian languages.

Just this year, PLJ launched Translator Gator Phase 2, to collect disaster-related keywords in eleven Asian countries. The project aims to crowdsource a list of disaster and humanitarian-related keywords & phrases in 30 national/local languages that can be used to better hear citizen’s voices. The taxonomies generated through Translator Gator will not only help to better understand the behaviors of affected populations before, during, and after a disaster, but will also improve communication with these communities through various channels & complement disaster management strategies in the region.

This is where you come in! Translator Gator has four parts to it:

• Translate disaster-related phrases from English to national or local languages,

• Suggest synonyms,

• Classify phrases into predefined categories, and

• Evaluate the translations of other players.

All you have to do is simply visit translatorgator.org to create a user account and play! Track your position on the Leaderboard and share/invite friends on social media to score extra points. As an extra incentive, top players will receive travel prizes, gift cards & merchandise rewards too!

This is your chance to make a difference and be part of something big—and have loads of fun while you’re at it! So what are you waiting for? 😉

For more information, you may visit http://www.unglobalpulse.org/news/translator-gator-language-game-for-disaster-management, or check out their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pulselab.jakarta.1) and Twitter (@PulseLabJakarta). They also have a Facebook fanpage (https://www.facebook.com/PulseLabJakarta/) and an Instagram page as well (https://www.instagram.com/pulselabjakarta/). In the meantime, have fun!

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